My name is Jane Freeland (nee Woodcock), I was a patient at the Marguerite Hepton Orthopaedic Hospital at Thorpe Arch, in Yorkshire, UK, from 1944-1948 with spinal TB. I'd like to share memories with other patients, nurses and others linked with the hospital. Do you have a story to share? If so, please contribute.
Jane Freeland (nee Woodcock)

Saturday, 23 August 2014

Michael Reeves who was a patient from 1962-64

Googling on
iPad, the day before going into hospital to be assessed for hip replacement, Michael
found the blog and rang Jane. What follows is based on our phone conversation, on
31 July, 2014, and an email Michael sent after I’d sent him my written version
of what he said, with the photo.

Michael was
a patient in Marguerite Hepton Hospital from 1962-1964, with Perthes disease,
first of all on Ward 3 (which was mixed, and had a babies’ section at one end,
and later in Ward 4, the Boys’ ward. He
was under the care of ‘Professor’ Clarke.

He mainly
has good memories of his time there. “I remember the Gala days. One
year four of us boys went as the Beatles in the fancy dress competition. The
nurses helped us to make cardboard guitars – I think we won the prize.

But the
highlight of my stay at Marguerite was meeting Billy Fury when he visited Ward 3. Here’s a photo, from
the Wetherby Post, that was taken when Billy saw the toy gun in my hand, and
came to my bedside to show me how to twirl it like a proper cowboy.Marty Wilde also came during my time there,
but this was the special one.”

Wetherby Post photo of Mike with Billy Fury

Like many
other children with Perthes disease, Michael left hospital in callipers. But "when I first came out I wanted to go back again, it all felt so strange. But I soon got
used to being at home again, with my younger brother and two sisters – my older sister used to come with my parents on visits.

The first
year and a half of school were at Potter Newton. I remember the dark blue
school bus, called "Samuel Legard", that came to round picking up children on the
school run.

The
callipers came off after a year, and I remember how, without them, I was
suddenly much smaller than most other boys in my year.”

His hips
functioned pretty well until Michael was 42: “I played football for 22 years
with no trouble at all. Then, I had a fall and my hips started to hurt really badly,
so I went along to the hospital. They did X-rays, but they seemed to think it
was nothing – told me to take Paracetamol and work through it. Then a couple of days
later they phoned back to say they'd had a closer look at the X-rays and they needed
to see me again. After an MIT scan, it turned out that my hips
had both crumbled and needed replacing. What a relief – I thought it might be
bone cancer! Both hips were replaced successfully, though one is now due for
review after 17 years.”

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